


Out of Place.

by markantony



Category: Ancient History RPF, Classical Greece and Rome History & Literature RPF
Genre: Drabble, Gen, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-26
Updated: 2016-08-26
Packaged: 2018-08-11 03:59:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7875319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/markantony/pseuds/markantony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The last moments of Caesarion and Antyllus.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Place.

**Author's Note:**

> You guys know I am not good with words.

Caesarion knew exactly where Antyllus would be. During the six years he had inhabited the palace in Alexandria, he had hidden in many secret places but Caesarion had always discovered them: sometimes because he was familiar with these secret corners, others because he had gotten to know the other boy too well and he was too smart. This time he'd be in a small room Mark Antony had built for personal use – his and his son's. It was in the right wing of the palace and it was very small. Unlike the rest of the palace, the walls weren't decorated with hieroglyphs on the outside and on the inside the paintings despicted their gods. The wall was almost empty, except for a little altar on the wall with the figurines of the Penates inside.

Antyllus had taken those figurines from his old house in Rome, back when he moved to Greece when he was seven years old. He, her sister Antonia and her brothers Iullus, Curio (the son of his mother and Scribonius Curio) and his other older brother Clodius and her sister Clodia all moved with Fulvia to Sycion in exile, and they all sat next to her deathbed. Antyllus confessed that he had never cried like that day and he sure didn't when, some days before, his father killed himself. Fulvia gave to each of the children (even to Antonia, who was not related to her) whatever they wished. Antonia and Clodia shared out her clothes, Clodius humbly accepted money and Antyllus kept a green pendant. Curio was only nine and he wanted nothing but her to live: he had lost his father and now he was loosing his mother. When Fulvia died, he told Antony that he wanted to go back to Rome to live with some distant relative of the Scribonia gens. He reluctantly accepted – he saw his old friend Curio in him and, moe than seven years since his death, he still missed him.

Antyllus had taken the figurines with him to Athens, where he lived with Octavia and Iullus because the rest of her sisters and brothers wanted to go back to the Roman capital too. The little children isolated themselves from Octavia when Antony wasn't in Athens and spent their time riding or playing with wooden swords. The only time they spent with the soft-spoken young woman was when their two sisters, both named Antonia, were born, and when it was time to pray. Fulvia had taught them the basics but Octavia did tell them to pray for their father, for their mother who was with the gods, for Rome, and for happiness. Iullus grew fond on her and sometimes slept in her bed. Antyllus watched and grew lonely.

Four years after his arrival to Greece he asked Octavia to let him take the Penates to Egypt with him, to protect him and his father. The poor woman couldn't tell Antony not to take his eldest-son with him to Egypt with his mistress, she didn't say a word that would upset her husband. She agreed, kissing Antyllus goodbye and claimed that he'd take care of Iullus as if he was her son. Iullus hugged his brother's neck and told him to come back for him; but they never saw each other.

Antyllus was praying, facing his gods with his eyes closed. Caesarion leant on the wall and observed the other seventeen years boy. He was taller, stronger and his hair and his nose were his father's. He had his eyes closed .

The way Romans prayed was not quite the same as the worship of Egyptian gods, but they weren't so different. Four years before, Caesarion was proclaimed as the son of the deified Julius Caesar and legitimate heir, but he was still King of Egypt and he worshipped them and spoke their tongue. He raised a prayer for Antyllus to Isis.

"What do you want?" inquired Antyllus, looking away from the altar and sitting down on the floor. Caesarion sat at the same level.

"What are you hiding from?"

"I'm not hiding, I'm saying goodbye."

Caesarion didn't say nothing but he didn't need to. Antyllus was planning to flee the palace – although in a different direction from him.

"When do you think he will _take_ Alexandria?" inquired Caesarion.

"Tomorrow. But I'm leaving at midnight. There is a ship that is going to Greece."

"You are going to your brother."

"He will help me without telling Octavia. I don't think she will give him to Octavian but me... I'm _his_ heir."

"I'm _her_ 's."

"Where is your mother?"

"She is going to follow Antony into the land of the death. She has told me."

"Are you going to let her?"

"The queen owns her life and she must die alone. I can't do nothing. You did nothing for your father."

Antyllus gulped and clenched his fists. He would have done it if he had known. On the other hand he found Caesarion stoicism towards the death of the most important person of his life intolerable. He had always been a closed book to him – while he was transparent to Caesarion from the very first time, when he enthusiastically shook his hand when they first met and the egyptian boy knitted his brows and run away from him.

Cleopatra went up to him resolutely. "You will become friends, give him time" she whispered in his hear as a welcome, while his father caressed his hair and let him alone to settle down in his room. He was welcomed too by her little sister, Selene, daughter of Cleopatra and Antony.

"Caesarion is not very nice, but you are stronger and you can be my friend" spoke the little girl in perfect greek. She became his favourite that very first day.

 

"Where are the little ones?" questioned Antyllus then.

"With the nurses. I wouldn't worry about them. They are nothing special."

"Octavian has killed people less important for nothing."

"Curio"

"Curio".

 

He and Curio had grown together. The boy was two years older, and like their fathers, they were too best friends. Antony raised him as if he were his son because he felt that he owed it to the child's father.

"My father can beat your father!" used to yell Curio when they were little. Antony agreed that his friend had put him _down_ many times and Fulvia slapped him for 'saying such things in front of little children.' Antyllus screamed that the other wasn't strong because he was dead. This made them fight a lot, but they always made peace. When Fulvia died and he returned to Rome, they sent letters to each other with regularity. Some days before he was executed, one year before, he wrote a letter which Antyllus received after he died.

 

_Actium, a.d III KAL SEPT._

_Ave Antonius, as you probably know, I'm in your father's army. I wish you could battle next to me, as we used to do when we were little children. I swear to Janus that we will defeat Octavian and his stupid army. I trust your father, whom I can call father too and I'm not ashamed, because mine would want me to._

_When this finishes you won't have to live in Alexandria anymore. Visit me, I'm going to get married. Her name is Tertia. I wish I could tell you how much I miss you, brother._

_Vale._

_Scribonius Curio._

 

"He was reckless. Your father was not a good general. The proof is that he lost in Actium when he had superiority of ships. My father, on the other hand..."

"Will you leave me alone if you are going to speak about Caesar?" grunted Antyllus. "He died and he didn't care about you. My father did! It is partly your fault that Octavian declared him enemy of the state, because he declarated you his heir. He didn't have to do that. And he raised you and taught you things."

"Useless things."

“My father was a real father. Yours never acted like it. Gaul?”

 

The strong, exquisite, perfectly correct lines of the stallion, with his superb hind-quarters and excessively short pasterns almost over his hoofs, attracted Caesarion’s attention in spite of himself. Antony had given it to his son for his sixteenth birthday – Caesarion said he wanted nothing from him. But he admired that horse. He didn't want anything from Antony, no. In secret, Antony expressed that he was free to use one of his horses to learn how to ride and that, although he wasn't able to teach him because he had things to do, he'd dispose one of his soldiers to teach him to ride 'the roman way'. He never admitted anything to Antyllus.

Mark Antony's son was one of the best archers he had seen and that is why he got that cognomen. He was good with the sword too and greek wrestling. “He knows a lot of languages and _he is king_ ” had observed the other twin, Alexander Helios, making emphasis on the last word, when Antyllus wondered why Caesarion didn't take any interest (or rather he didn't show it) in fighting and becoming a man.

Which they became together when they wore the toga virilis and relinquised their _bullae_ , a ceremony that took place a few days later after they sisxteenth birthday. Antony acted as the pater familia. It was a pity that he couldn't take them to the Forum, in order to fulfill the tradition, but instead Antony and Caesarion prayed in front of the altar of the Penates. It was one of the few times the man had been seen praying.

 

“Whatever.”

They kept silent, letting the time pass seamlessly. Antyllus took his pendant and kissing it, he jumped up suddenly. “I got to get ready.”

Caesarion understood and got up lazily. A shiny light gleamed in Antyllus eyes, that had been dull a second before. They shook hands firmly and Caesarion left him alone.

* * *

In the afternoon, little groups and solitary figures among the people began running from

place to place to get a better view of the princeps leaving the palace of Alexandria. He had discovered the queen Cleopatra dead, having killed herself so as not to be a captive of Octavian. The princeps accepted that her and Antony's body rested in their chosen tomb, he didn't care much.

He walked back with his escort to the house where they were staying. Octavian rested in bed for a few hours because the sun of Egypt hurt his head but soon before dinner he was woken up by the news.

“We caught Caesarion. He was heading to the Red Sea” said Agrippa, in his usual quiet and resolute

tone.

“Excellent. I want to dinner with him.”

Half an hour later, Caesarion sat in front of Octavian, who watched him with his inquisitive ice blue eyes. It was said that he looked like his father. But Caesarion took after Caesar as well. The two heirs of the great man, sitting face to face, neither of them showing what was going on inside their heads. That, for example, they took after Julius Caesar.

“Take him to his cell” waved off Octavian.

“Wait!”

Octavian raised his eyebrow, the soldiers let go of Caesarion's arm. “What happened to my mother's corpse?”

“She is in her tomb.”

The young boy let go of the air he had been holding and bowed his head. He was resigned to be reunited with her in the Other World.

“Your brother is dead too...” His brother? Did he dare to kill Alexander or Ptolemy? Or...

“...he took after his father definetely. Taking a ship in the middle of the night when all my soldiers were on duty... Not very brainy of him,” he finished talking. He was talking of Antyllus. Caesarion hadn't expected him to be caught.

“How did he die?”

Agrippa spoke. “Beheaded. He has been buried by the road with a jewel that he wore around his neck..”

“Enough. Agrippa, take care of him and bury him by the road as well.” Caesarion raised one last prayer.

 


End file.
